Sunday noon in These titles mean nothing.

I got up early this morning with a million things to write about ..... and then just let the time fritter away. And now it’s noon.

Jim and the neighbor down stream have gone to landowner’s appreciation meal put on by the local snowmobilers. They had hardly any snow this year but I guess they are still appreciative. It’s at bar/restaurant in the northern part of the county that’s run by one of the old Democrats. He and his wife are probably both shirt tail relatives if you stretch the shirt long enough. I used to work with his wife, nice woman and he was county supervisor for a couple terms. I think I’ve only been to his place once - by the time you get there you are half way to Lacrosse and we just go to Lacrosse.

He was at yesterday’s county Dem convention that both Jim and I went to. It was in the public room in the bank basement - a place that really is a benefit to the community. Big, easy to get to, free if you clean up afterward, kitchen, tables, chairs. I’ve been to lot of events there, many political, but not all. My runaway uncle’s funeral reception was there. He’d died on the west coast and had come home as ashes so a local funeral home was not involved.

The convention time was changed from morning to afternoon because of weather that never happened. There were 34 delegates and 8 alternates (chosen at precinct caucuses in January), so that was a nice crowd. We have new Democrats since I quit going to everything and that is a good thing. We chose 3 delegates and 5 alternates to go on to the district and state conventions in April and July (I think) respectively. There will also be a primary election in June where we will choose candidates for elections in which there are more than one person running. The caucus and conventions kind of hint at candidate selection but the election is the final choice, unless a candidate does not get a majority, then it goes to the state convention to decide. This year there are races for Democratic nomination for state governor, US representative, other state offices and for our local state representative. So it’s all lively and interesting.

I generally enjoy going to political stuff. I have friends I meet and talk to. I like especially to hear the candidates speak. So even if I am in hermit mode I had a pretty good time at the convention.

There were no guns but I have bullets anyway -

• We vote on platform planks that were submitted at the precinct caucus and massaged by a platform committee. I always think we are going to vote on each plank individually - which is how I’d like to do it. But instead we vote on a whole slug of planks under various categories all together. If someone doesn’t like one plank they can ask that it be set aside and then discussed and voted on separately.

• That happened twice yesterday. One was term limits. Term limits are something that the party who is not in power wants and the party that is in power doesn’t want. Dems are not in power so we want them. After some discussion we decided not to pass that plank on.

• The other was a complexly worded social welfare plank that seemed well meaning but could have been picked to pieces. After discussion we decided to pass it on anyway.

• Our two candidates for state rep were there and spoke. One is county co-chair and is a nurse who has worked in a family planning clinic that no longer exists. She is running on women’s health as a main factor. She is about Jim’s age and from a large and well known family.

• The other candidate is 22 and he lives in the north part of the country. He’s not exactly employed but he spoke well. I personally don’t think he has a chance but I’m glad he’s running.

• There was a surprise (to me anyway) visit from a really sharp young guy from college town who is running for State Auditor. He has been an attorney in the State Attorney General’s office for 7 years and has some good prosecutions up his sleeve. He wants to be auditor because our current auditor worked too hard to eliminate voting places and to try to find illegal voters (when there weren’t any). He would also like to provide more positive money saving hints to the cities and counties when their finances are audited. He was a really good speaker and I liked him a lot. He has a good flyer with an attractive family. He asked for Facebook and Twitter support. He was able to attend three county conventions partly because we had moved ours to the afternoon.

• There was a Life Saving march in college town and the auditor candidate left early to meet his family there. Others at the convention went over afterward too. It probably would have been over by then but it still would have been good to go.

• County conventions in non-presidential years can agree to form preference groups for one office… in other words to ‘vote’ for race. The one to vote for this time would have been governor which is state wide and has a number of people running. Jim and I liked John Norris. I think I wrote about him a little before. Our lawyer liked Fred Hubble (who grew up in Terrace Hill, the current governor’s mansion when his family owned it - he’s very pro-Planned Parenthood). Other candidates are a young man from near DesMoines who is getting a lot of attention, a woman MD who was state chair, a woman nurse who has union backing.

• Our convention decided not to poll on the governor’s candidates - or not to form preference groups which is the term for it. Other counties did including urban ones which seemed to give most preference to the young man from Des Moines whose name I can’t remember right now. I feel a little bad about that but there is no point in getting your feelings hurt this early in the game.

• I bought two tickets for the local’s fund raiser which is April 15. Most of the governor’s candidates have said they are coming so that will be a fun event. Honest. A person gets into this kind of thing.

I have a million less a few things left to write about but I guess I’ll call this enough for right now. Can’t expect you guys to wade through unending twaddle and drivel.

Have a good week everyone. I will be back with more.